Mole

Mole


This poem began its life
as a thought about wild beasts

but somehow slithered away toward death,
which is surely the next big safari

or absolutely nothing. Funny how the mind
gallops along with whatever you’re doing,

following a recipe for banana bread, measuring
for new carpet. There should always be a measure

of death in a poem, if not right before your eyes
like some big dumb animal you try to scoot

out the door, then as a little one somewhere,
hidden like a mole under the house.

The banana bread rises, arches its tawny back.
The carpet curls itself into the corners

and purrs beneath your feet. And even deeper
the mole motors along, ravenous, blind.